


Like a Story Out of a Book...

by love2imagine



Series: New Beginnings [4]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:36:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1515785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love2imagine/pseuds/love2imagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mozzie visits Detroit and is given a book...but what does it mean for him, if anything?</p><p>White Collar Characters and background owned by Jeff Eastin. Mangling of the historical facts and rest of the story is mine. Mistakes Mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Story Out of a Book...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elrhiarhodan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/gifts), [and my beloved](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=and+my+beloved).



When Neal received the call from Mozzie, he was just a little exasperated. He was busy finishing a large canvas, and was not sure quite what was not right…everything was right, but it didn’t feel right. He had left it and come back several times, he’d walked round it, back and forth, looked at it in a mirror, even turned it upside down…!

June said it was beautiful, and Peter had nodded his head and said, “You know me, Neal, all my taste in my mouth, but I like it!” – which had made Neal happy, had made him smile, but hadn’t meant much!

But Elizabeth had also said, “Your technique is improving all the time, Neal. This is very good.” And that meant more.

But it didn’t ring true in his heart.

Neal was on the point of scrapping the damned thing! Taking a knife and tearing the canvas, taking it out to the docks and burning it! Somehow, the praise made him less sure about this work.

It was okay… _‘It’s okay’ is damning with faint praise!_

Now this call! Mozzie could become excited about nothing. That was the problem. Someone else would see three uniformed soldiers and wave and be happy that these men and women were out there, keeping the country safe. Mozzie would see them as the advanced guard of an invasion intent on establishing military rule. Other people may be ‘glass-half-full’ kind of folks…Mozzie was an ‘is it a glass, is it an illusion, is the stuff in it poisoned, why are they asking me questions about it, who are “They” and what are they trying to make me believe?’ kind of guy!

However, and sadly, Mozzie was right just often enough to be scary. And whenever Neal had called, Mozzie had come, even though to Mozzie Neal was just as liable to be over-reacting - just on an emotional level!

Neal gave the innocent arrangement of paint on canvas a last, vicious look, as though telling it that it had better be fixed when he came back or else…and left. He joined Mozzie at Sally’s place. Sally was off working on some computer problem with someone, trying to create safe, simple and secure software, and Neal was rather surprised that Mozzie wasn’t with her.

Moz was sitting looking out of the window, cradling a glass of red wine, though Neal couldn’t see the bottle. To that point the scene seemed predictable. But Mozzie wasn’t excited, his glasses weren’t flashing semaphores of distress and anxiety. He was unusually still.

“Mozzie? I came. What’s the problem?” Neal asked, shutting the door.

“I don’t know if I’d call it a problem…well, perhaps in the sense of an enigma to be solved,” Mozzie mused.

Neal pulled out the chair he preferred and sat. There was no point in trying to hurry Moz. And that stupid painting would be there when he got back. Or not – better! He gave Moz enough attention to catch all the clues, and rested.

After a few minutes, Mozzie said, “You know I went up to Detroit?”

“Mmhmm.” He hadn’t seen Moz since, which in itself was a little strange.

“I don’t know if you know but I sort of had a birthday…an anniversary of the day I was found, shall we say.”

“Oh?” ... ** _Uh-oh,_** thought Neal. Mozzie could get really weird when it came to his origins. Not surprisingly, but still.

“Well, apparently the person or persons who dropped me off had contacted a legal firm and left a package for me, to be delivered so-and-so many years later.”

Neal focussed. “Your parents? You mean that after all this time -”

“No, I don’t know. Could be.”

“You got a name…?”

“No. Just listen, it isn’t that simple. In fact, it’s the biggest mystery, and if it’s true, it’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard of or imagined.”

Neal’s mind reeled. He remembered a few of the things that Mozzie had imagined…! Especially when it came to his biological beginnings! He cleared his throat and asked, “Mozzie, are you okay? I mean, you aren’t on any medication or any herbal trial you are running or - ”

Mozzie huffed and said, “When you hear this, you may wish I was!”

Silence fell. Neal couldn’t guess what to ask next, so he remained quiet.

“There was no letter, no little blue booties or the key to a safe-deposit box, no insurance policy or code words that get me into a secret society,” Moz said. “Nothing personal, in that sense, at all.”

Neal took a little more control. “Is this bad news?”

“No, if it’s true, it’s probably very good news. And if it isn’t true, it’s still a wonderful story and perhaps a silly treasure hunt.”

“So we’re …happy?” Neal probed.

“I suppose. I mean, yes. I just wish they could have left me a note, if they were my folks, saying something to **_me._** ”

Neal was silent again. They both had unfulfilled wishes when it came to their pasts. Then he asked, “So what was in the package?”

“An old book.”

“Oh – first edition? One of a kind?”

“Well, yes, you could say that! It’s a sort of journal.”

“Oh.” That didn’t sound very interesting, or very valuable, unless it was Pepys’. Mozzie got up, went through and came back with a large, spiral-bound note-book. “Um, Mozzie – this doesn’t look very old!” Neal said, hesitantly.

“I translated it and transcribed it, Neal!” snapped his friend. “Some of the ink was faded, some of the writing was poor, I wanted to be able to get an idea of the whole.”

“Translated - ?”

“Some of it was in Italian.”

“You should have called, I’m - ”

“I know, you’re more comfortable in Italian than I am, but I’m not poor at it, Neal, and this was – this was – I wanted to find out what it was for myself. Before I shared it.”

Neal nodded quickly. “I’m sorry, Moz. Oh course!”

“It might have told me that my parents were murderers or government officials or - or taxmen or bankers or human traffickers, pedophiles - **_anything!”_** Mozzie said, a little hurt Neal would not understand right away.

Neal bit the inside of his lip, and nodded seriously. “Can I read it, now?” Neal asked.

“Yes. I want you to. Take it away and read it. But don’t show anyone else!”

“You haven’t told Sally?”

“Not yet. It’s more an us-thing than a Sally-thing. Maybe a very us-thing.”

“Okay,” Neal nodded, and Mozzie fussed about putting it in a water-tight zipped carry-bag with a long strap to go over Neal’s neck and be secure. Neal was about to leave when he sensed that Mozzie had something he wanted to say. He paused and Mozzie waved his hands but wouldn’t look him in the eye.

“Neal,” Mozzie asked, seriously, “do you believe in reincarnation?”

Of all the things Mozzie could have asked, that would not have been Neal’s first guess! He said, “Um…I’m not against the idea, exactly. Intellectually. Obviously I’ve read up on it, there’s lots of evidence of people – young children – knowing all about the lives of another person far away that died before they were conceived. It would explain the inequalities we see, if everyone gets to experience multiple lives. I just haven’t been much of a fan on a personal level – one childhood like mine was enough! I’d like to see them get me to come back!”

Mozzie nodded and looked into his eyes. “Keep an open mind, would you, Neal?”

“Yeah, of course!”

“Call me when you’re done with it.”

“Sure.” Neal hurried home, made himself a snack and lay down on the couch with Mozzie’s note-book. (He didn’t even give the irritating piece on the easel a glance! He would have thought the book worth a great deal, just for that, had he remembered the thing!) He opened it and there was Mozzie’s small, neat hand-writing:

 

I **st of January, 1909**

 

**I am writing this because something so strange occurred that I feel I must record the happenings so I do not come to believe they are all imaginary.In addition, if what has happened is true, a series of events will take place from this time forward and it would be wrong to lose the details. In case this statement does, truthfully, become conveyed to another, I should give a brief explanation of my circumstances.**

**My name is Alessandro _____. I came south with my friend Matteo ____hoping to get away from some family disagreements and start a business together. {Both surnames have been blotted out as completely as possible. They may have been Ricci or Russo or Rossi or ? and Sala or ?, but I cannot be sure – M}  Matteo’s family deals with marble, my family is in printing.**

**We are younger sons and neither of us wanted to do as expected and join the family enterprise, at least until we have experienced a little autonomy. Neither of us have a vocation to be priests, which is the other acceptable option. We were both born in Milan and have good education.**

**We were ignorant and sadly arrogant, coming from the north. We thought that the southerners were lazy, always complaining. That is what we had been told. When we tried to start a business many things became clear.**

**Firstly, neither of us have the dark hair and eyes that are seen in the south. Matteo’s eyes are blue, mine are paler greenish-blue. Our hair is medium brown. These things make us the target of prejudice. It is not unreasonable.**

**We have discovered that the situation in the south is deplorable. It seems a different country. There is little access to education. The roads and buildings are mostly in poor to very poor condition. There have been many disasters here, we are told, and the government has been slow to offer help and what has come has been as nothing. Matteo is a very sensitive person and has been horrified by what we have seen. I am ashamed because of what I see here.**

**The people here live in poverty and many have given up. The levels of taxation, much higher in respect to wealth than in the North, are draining the very life of the area and almost none, it appears, comes back to aid the southern people. It is hard to imagine what it would have been like with decent government. I hesitate to write this, but it is almost criminal. We have written what we observe to our parents and they tell us we are young, unapprised and foolish. { I get the sense that the parents think they’ve ‘gone native’ – M}**

**In mid-November, we received a letter from my uncle and we were planning on travelling to Messina where we were to meet up with a friend of his who already has businesses trading in the area. Over the next month we wrapped up our struggling enterprise and wrote to accept his kind offer.**

**As I say, many people, upon seeing us, focus their anger with the north and the unfair government on us. However, not all people here have done so. We have had help. One such friend told me that before we journey, I must come and speak to his sister’s friend.**

**I could not understand his insistence but because he has been kind I went, leaving Matteo to gather up our belongings and try and sell some things to get supplies for the journey. Our money is dwindling.**

**Please, reader, understand: I wish to explain this history, but I do not wish to involve innocents. I will just say that this sister’s friend, I will call her Silvia, is not originally Italian, but from Ireland. Her Italian is good, though heavily accented. However, there is no doubt of the things she told me.**

**Silvia is blind. She is beautiful and soft-spoken. She was also very agitated. “I have a message for you,” she said.**

**I found that strange. Who would be writing to her for me? I had never met her before! However, she did not wait or explain, but continued, “You are planning on leaving for the south, is it not so?” When I agreed, she shook her head and said, “You must not. You can not! Please, to listen to me. It is a matter of life and death. I have convinced my friend and his brother (she used their names) to accompany me. We are leaving for the north and going into France as soon as we may. However, it is important that you, also, come with us. I do not understand, but your lives are very important. This is not a choice, please understand.”**

**“Who are you speaking about? Me and who else?”**

**“The names are not important and not easy…they do not come with ease. You know of whom I am speaking. He is a friend and will be a friend for hundreds of years.”**

**Reader, at this point I wondered if this poor girl was mentally unsound as well as blind. There are some childhood ailments that can have these effects.**

**I glanced at our friend and he shrugged and said, “I do not pretend to comprehend, Sandro, but whenever she becomes like this, she tells us things and they have been correct. Completely! Absolutely! She insisted on seeing the man with the blue-green eyes…you are the only one I know, so here you are. You are under no obligation to listen, but I would suggest you consider strongly. Because of her accuracy, we are packing what we can and leaving. She says it is for the best. I have known her for three years and never has she been more insistent, and never has she been incorrect.”**

**She said Matteo and I would be friends for hundreds of years and our friend says she is never wrong. Reader, what would you have thought? I thought the unsoundness of mind was catching and perhaps I should leave the house without delay. I did not know how to take my leave of Silvia without giving offence, but she smiled at me. Oh, that smile!**

**She said, “It is crazy I sound, but I promise it is true. You will see if you come with us. Here is something to consider. Your friend, your good friend, the friend of the heart, he keeps a locket, does he not? It is from his grandmother. You and he swore a bond using his father’s family sword when you were - ” she put her hand a space from the ground.**

**I stared at her because there is not a way that she could have known these things. Matteo was a little shy of his grandmother’s locket and kept it hidden, and certainly even I had forgotten our ‘blood oath’ of more than a decade!**

**I went home and explained it all to Matteo, thinking and expecting him to tell me it was all nonsense and that we must make haste to go south. Instead, he put his hand inside his shirt and pulled out the locket. “Sandro,” he said, “I am sorry, but we should go north. My grandmother was just such a one and she was never wrong. She died when I was very young, but all the family knows. We never told the priest, we have kept it a secret, you understand! But yes, she was always correct.”**

**Which is how we ended up, a strange little group, making our way north in winter, with Christmas fast approaching! There is nothing sensible about this tale! Matteo and I felt some discord about approaching our homes. Their attitude, and the fact that we had not gone to see the friend of our uncle even when he had offered us help, made us reluctant.**

**As it happened, that last was not to be an issue of contention. Of course, as you will have heard, just after Christmas the whole of Messina and all of the proximate areas were destroyed by the most dreadful earthquake and wave of water, killing perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, wiped out in a catastrophe of huge immensity.**

**There was another wave, one of desperate humanity that fled north. Because of Silvia’s warning, we were in front of that wave and achieved our first goal. We dallied in the north for a time, still a little unsure about contacting our families. However, Silvia was insistent that we journey into France. And the stories told us by those who escaped the south and met with us because of our friends, the stories that the government was doing nothing to help, that convinced us that we should seek a better place to live.**

**Our friend’s sister, whom I shall call Bella, was very sweet with Silvia.**

**Perhaps it was inevitable, and I should have expected it, but Matteo was smitten with Silvia’s beauty and gentleness. Bella told me that perhaps he liked the fact that Silvia liked him for himself and not for his good looks and charming smile, since she could not see. I did not mind that she said that, as she seemed quite content in my company, and our friend, whom I’d better call Mario, seemed amused by all that was happening. He was a good friend and always in good spirits.**

**After all we had been through, I was open to more of what Silvia said. One cold night when we were all huddled around a fireplace in a small and dirty inn, I asked her how it would be possible for Matteo and I to remain friends for hundreds of years, and what was in France.**

**“I cannot tell you how I know things, Sandro,” she said, “and often I understand them little. That is what I have seen. You will both have daughters, and the daughters will have sons, and then those sons will have daughters, and every time there are boys, the two of you will be friends-of-the-heart. You will look in his blue eyes and know him for your friend. He also has a line of spots…” she hesitated and Matteo said, “Freckles, my father has them, too, as have I”, and she nodded and smiled at him, “as he says, freckles on his shoulder. You will know. This link is very important and a very special, {? – M } unique thing.**

**“And as for France, just in case we become separated, you must look for a very small Italian girl. In Paris. You will adopt her for a time and help her grow into her life’s position and she will help you to become wealthy. In a few years, Matteo and Sandro you must journey across the seas to this America and make your homes there. For that, you will need wealth. You just find this little girl from Italy, and take her home, make her famous.”**

**“To Italy? But you said we needed to go to America!”**

**“Yes, yes, it is a process, Sandro! Is there not a saying in your country that Rome was not built in a day? It is not yet that you are to go to Paris. You need to grow, to learn.” Actually, that is not a saying in Italy, but I did not correct her.**

**“Learn, what are we to learn?”**

**“You will know. Stay in France. Until you find the little girl. Then you will know what to do.”**

**Certainly, Matteo thought she was delightful and would have followed her instructions if the plan was to jump off the Eiffel Tower. I am less delighted with plans that are vague, uncanny and abstract in the extreme. And even combined, our resources were meagre.**

**We indeed wandered around parts of France. It was a perfect place for Matteo. He has always been a dreamer and an artist and France at this time was as rich soil for him. He studied and talked to artists and sketched and painted with some students and sometimes the more affluent patrons of the painters gaining fame would like his work. He made some money this way.**

**He tried to tell me about the vibrant changes and the new freedoms in painting, but it has never been my first interest. In defence, I found some scientists and mathematicians and studied many fascinating subjects I wish I could expound, but this is not the place. I stayed away from the flamboyant and affected artists, though we continued friends and all helped each other, worked at little jobs we could get and pooled our resources. I think we saw a great deal of France, but stayed away from Paris. All of us worked at whatever we could, but the poor here were very poor. We managed to gather not a great deal, but by living very frugally, we eventually had enough money and Mario, Bella and Silvia left for America.**

**We were not happy about separating, but Silvia told us that they would be in our way, but would get settled and await our arrival. We were then short of money once again. All we had was some clothing, my notes and a large, awkward and smelly box of mostly scrounged painting supplies I could not talk Matteo into leaving behind.**

**We went to Paris and I nearly lost Matteo for good when he discovered the galleries, the artists working round Paris, the atmosphere to him was like strong wine.**

**However, he found us work, and they easily took on two strong Italians who spoke French well, as the French are aware of our craftsmanship.**

**We were careful and reliable and soon had regular work in the various museums, large homes, studios and galleries, sometimes doing carpentry and small construction jobs, sometimes cleaning and carrying.**

**It was while we were working that he came to me, his eyes alight. He said he had found the little Italian girl. He practically dragged me and showed me a painting.**

**I was unimpressed and told him so.**

**“She is a girl, and Italian,” he said, as though that made all clear and obvious.**

**She was also hanging on the wall of the Louvre.**

**“We need to take her home.”**

**“It is stealing, my friend.”**

**“They stole her first. She is not at home, is she? We will take her and we will be wealthy.”**

**“If we are going to steal a painting, let us take an important work, something worth a great deal of money!”**

**Matteo shrugged at all the other wonderful art in the place. He told me there was a boy stolen from his home in America and that the boy was now famous.**

**“No-one knew his name before, now half the world knows his name. We shall make our little Italian girl famous, too.**

**.....“And the others are too big.”**

**I should never have argued with Matteo. He gets stubborn.**

**In the end, it was so stupidly easy that I could not believe it.**

**Of course, again, Matteo can charm birds out of trees. He has always fooled everyone and his smile distracts people from what he is really doing. Since childhood he has helped us both avoid retribution on any number of occasions.**

**He studied the girl and went home and painted her. Over and over. It seemed he never slept, he was obsessed. He painted over her and over her at times, since he had no money for new canvases.**

**We were working at the Louvre by then, putting the paintings under glass. He just walked in and replaced the original painting with his. He took her home later, under his coat and, talking to her as though she was his own daughter, he painted her again, with the original in front of him.**

**No-one noticed the swop. I told you the painting was of no great interest!**

**I did not understand Matteo. He did not stop at stealing the girl to take home. He kept painting her, wasted money buying supplies despite my continued disapproval, painting her again. Soon he had seven, to me identical little Italian girls.**

**Since he had the original in front of him, now, he could also forge the Louvre’s certification on the reverse and all the identifying marks to make a complete whole copy. There I could help him!**

**“Now,” he said to me, “we have to steal the painting.”**

**“You have already…”**

**“No, no, no! The world needs to know she is missing!”**

**We were not important people in the museum. Most people did not know us by name, and now I was told to call my friend Vincenzo, preferably loud enough to be heard by staff when they passed. He easily became this new man, and I found later that he was using the name of a real person, an Italian who also worked in the Louvre and other houses and museums and galleries, and did work much as we did but with another group of his own, who was very patriotic but not perhaps very clever.**

**My crazy friend went into the Louvre on a Sunday and hid there and the next morning, when he knew there would be few people, on the day of cleaning, in the bright morning light, and took his own painting off the wall of the Louvre! The museum Director was on vacation, he told me, which should help confuse the matter.**

**He walked her, took her on the bus! I do not know what he would have done, I was not privileged to see if anyone even asked, he said not! He was smiling broadly.**

**Now we had eight little Italian girls!**

**There was a huge outcry when finally the theft was discovered!**

**Apparently the police visited the real Vincenzo Peruggia, but he told them he had been working at a different place on the day of the theft, which was true! - and they ceased to have interest in him. Matteo was concerned when another man was arrested in connection with the theft, but the police soon let him go. There was no evidence.**

**If they had known where to look, there was a superfluity of evidence! Soon the investigation seemed to have come to a halt.**

**Crowds visited the empty place on the wall where she had hung, people who had never visited the Louvre before, let alone this small, insignificant painting! Now, because she wasn’t there, they clambered to see where she had been. It was a thing of great lunacy.**

**Matteo had the effrontery to take a bouquet of flowers and place it there!**

**Then Matteo’s plan showed itself. Over the next two years, with great patience and a stealth I would not have thought he possessed, he used his contacts to sell this painting to collectors from all over the world, people who loved to keep their treasures secret, or showed them to only a select, trusted few.**

**He sold six of them.**

**When I asked his plan, he laughed, shook his head and said that I had not trusted him even to get the little girl home!**

**Then I thought he truly had gone insane! A buyer in Italy was looking to buy artworks. Matteo, calling himself Leonardo (he was always a little arrogant) said he had the stolen Monna Lisa! The man insisted he come to Italy and that he must authenticate the piece at Uffizi. I begged Matteo not to go, but he said that Silvia had told him to take the little girl back home. So he did.**

**I did not accompany him. I was to take the considerable sum of money he had amassed to the others in America should his plan fail, but he took the original and the last copy, both hidden in the bottom of his trunk, with his clothes and spare boots on top!**

**The next thing I heard, my friend had been arrested for the theft!**

**The Monna Lisa toured Italy, but was brought back to France, to great accolades. Crowds came to see her. Certainly Matteo had made our little Italian famous! She continued to smile strangely, and I could imagine she knew her curious history!**

**And Matteo? He was tried, as Peruggia, but his charm, his smile, his acting, his magic did not fail him and he was shortly released as being a patriot, one who was not of sound mind. I could have told them that many long years ago.**

**(I later heard that the other, the real Vincenzo Peruggia also travelled back to Italy and became quite famous in a small way for being the patriot that tried to return La Gioconda to Italy! He was not hurt in any way by Matteo’s fiction!) {This was scribbled in the margin – M.}**

**My friend rejoined me and became Matteo once more and, taking our money, we left for America. Once on the ship, and in a quiet place, he told me that our families, believing that their beloved (if estranged) sons had died in that terrible earthquake and wave in southern Italy, had erected a quite marvellous (he laughed as he said this, so I am not sure if he was serious) crypt to our memories, complete with empty stone coffins carved with our likenesses.**

**He said that the little Italian girl would wait for us under a fake floor in his coffin as long as needed. He had her authenticated, then somehow swapped his last copy with the original. Or perhaps the curator authenticated the forgery, I have never been quite sure and it seems unimportant now.**

**We never went back to Italy, so I have no proof of her whereabouts, but though Matteo often didn’t tell me all the truth he never lied to me, so I have no reason to believe that she is not lying wrapped carefully in the cool, dry darkness, the genuine little Italian girl.**

**And the Louvre, and six separate and distant art lovers all fondly believe they have the original.**

**It is typically Matteo.**

**We joined up as planned with Silvia, Bella and Mario.  
**

**We married Silvia and Bella as soon as we could and soon each gave birth to a little girl. We set ourselves up in the young America before the War and lived very well. We went to the north of New York, to a beautiful area and built two houses close.**

**The War disrupted our lives as it did everyone’s. Thankfully, our families were financially secure. We grew victory gardens and it was beautiful around our homes.**

**But we both joined up when the United States decided it could not remain out of the war any longer and went to France. The war was terrible and I will not waste time here writing much about it. People, men, women, children, young and old, died from gas and terrible wounds and the Spanish influenza. There was a stink of Death everywhere. Matteo was never quite the same after it, however. Some spark of life left him.**

**Mario later found himself a wife, Elsa, and moved to New York City, and they visited us but since she had not been part of our great adventure it created a little separation between us. Matteo and I worked an import-export business dealing in marble and art works, leather goods, wine and food and other things from the old country.**

**I did the finances, knew the laws and ran the business, Matteo developed loyal partners we could trust, and sold the goods. He soon selected certain lines and products that sold very well for good profits. He has a sense for these things.**

**Our two little girls went to school and learned quickly, and at home we taught them all we had known, from the rich world of marble and the precise world of printing through all the art styles Matteo had picked up and all the mathematics and science I had absorbed. He and I had to keep learning just to make sure we had more to teach!**

**Sadly, though there was much to be proud of in our new country, there was corruption growing here, too. We tried to be aware without letting the knowledge make us bitter, since there seemed little we could do. There were too many people who supported it for their own reasons. Between us, we tried to make our families safe from it. We saw again how, if people do not control their own money, do not fiercely hoard that right to have and give as seems good to them, it breeds evil and even charity becomes impersonal and twisted.**

**Our girls, I will call my daughter Leonora and Matteo’s daughter Theresa, grew beautiful and strong and we tried not to shield them from life and its dangers, despite our desire to do so. To our relief they seemed to have a natural common sense and laughed at us.**

**They brought their friends home and thankfully they trusted Silvia completely, having seen the evidence of years. She never preached or lectured. It was hard for them to argue when she said, “I know not why I see this, girls, but I do. Please be careful!” and they would give up the ‘boyfriend’ they had thought so wonderful, and soon they would find out that she was right again.**

**Years passed, they married nice Catholic Irishmen and Matteo and I kept a watch on them. They settled down close enough and soon, just as Silvia had said, they each had a son. One with eyes like clear, pale blue-green jade, one with eyes like the Mediterranean. The boys played together and we were young enough to teach them as we had taught their mothers.**

**When they were swimming I turned Matteo’s grandson around and there across his shoulder blade ran the little line of freckles. We smiled at each other.**

**We told them that we had a secret, our families. That they were special, that they would be friends of the heart, as Silvia had called us. That they could trust each other. I told them I had written a history that would seem strange, and they were to keep it a secret, add to it if they wished, and hand it on to their grandsons, or make sure this happened. That their grandsons would be friends as they were. They thought we were strange old men, of course, though we were not that aged!**

**They loved all of us, and that was enough for me. If the rest turned out to be less reliable, then so be it. There is something about having a family secret that makes us close. It is a comforting, embracing feeling.**

**Now and then, when we are all alone, I tease Matteo and tell him that all our wealth and success came from a theft of a little Italian girl, and he tells me, every time, that theft is a taking away. We took, multiplied and returned. How is that a theft? We laugh.**

**{The end of ‘Sandro’s journaling – M}**

 

 

Neal put the book down and got himself a glass of wine. He stood, looking out over the city, wondering. Could all this be true? How delightful if it was! He felt he would have liked to have met the young, idealistic friends, their lovely wives, their vibrant daughters.

He hoped the story was true! He also understood Mozzie’s quiet, his contemplation.

Who had sent the book to Mozzie? He had to go back to it.

He called Peter and let him know he wasn’t going to be available that evening, and collected the book, some bread and cheese and the wine, and settled on the couch.

 

 

**1947 **

**I have inherited a book, a diary of my grandfather’s, supposedly telling of the exploits of himself and his friend, who is also my best friend’s grandfather. I have read it and cannot suppose it to be true. It does, however, explain that glint in my otherwise practical and staid grandfather’s eye! And Uncle Matteo has a wild, gypsey streak in him, that is sure!**

**My grandfather wrote in detail much of their adventures. He did keep all but their first names secret. Even my grandmother’s name and that of my friend, have been altered. Certainly they taught us to be cautious, saying that what people knew about you could be used against you. If we had a family crest, that would probably be the motto on it! And it would have to be the crest of two families! What would that be? ‘Quod notum vobis nocere potest’? or ‘Notum sit tibi, et te perdere potest’? I fail to see why I should be writing this! My friend would be far better, he’s so good with languages!**

**I am not sure what I am supposed to add, while not telling much at all! I am to keep the book secret, but pass it on to my grandson, should I have one! However, I will say that my friend’s grandmother, called Silvia throughout this report, was exactly correct about us. My friend, I’ll follow the pattern and call him Matthius, is the person in the world I trust above all others and he says he feels the same about me, even though I am the elder by a few years, enough to make close friendship difficult for most children as they are growing up. I think it helped that our mothers were good friends and often laughed and played, sang and danced like children themselves! Our fathers smile at them!**

**Like all Italian families we quarrel noisily as though it is the end of the world, and make up quickly and without rancour.**

**I suppose I must call myself something. I shall be Alec.**

**We have enjoyed an unusual education: the best that money could buy in terms of a formal education, a great deal of additional skills and especially a definite way of thinking from our two grandfathers. Our fathers sometimes doubted the correctness of that, but our mothers told them they would not have been allowed to marry them had they not agreed to it! Our grandfathers were almost like the God-father in their determination to keep our families safe and together! I am glad, their teaching is fascinating and fun!**

**Matthius has inherited and enhanced the artist’s skills. He is truly gifted. He can paint in any style and has an eye for detail and colour that I truly envy. I can understand technique from a scientific standpoint, but my interests lie more with electricity and electronics, machines and chemistry. He has always laughed at me and says I need to get out more and meet more girls. He meets enough girls for both of us, but then he has a smile that any female, from eight months to eighty years cannot resist.**

**I tell him that he must find a lovely girl and I will marry her friend, as his grandfather did for my grandfather!**

**1954 Indeed, Matty and I found two girls who had been friends since they were small, and married them. They are both of Irish descent, my wife, I shall call her Colleen, a good Irish name (though not her real name) and I shall call Matty’s wife Sharon (ditto!) Colleen gave birth to a pretty baby we …I shall call her Maria. A few years later, Sharon gave birth to a girl. I shall call her Mia.**

**Maria plays with her and ‘helps’ as much as she can, and Mia’s eyes follow her when she is in the room. It is very sweet.**

**1965 Our families, Matthius’ and mine, are leaving the United States for a time, hopefully limited.**

**Both the Italian Padrone’s are now gone, sadly, and I fear their hot, vibrant blood may be weakened in our generation! { Notation in margin in other ink: Matteo and then Sandro died within six months of each other in 1963.}**

**Our fathers have a furniture-building business that is doing well, and they are not of an age to be drafted, so our parents are staying, but there is a chance that they will want Matty and me. If there is one thing that we have been taught it is that war and conflict never benefits anyone but those who profit financially.**

**Before he died, my grandfather showed us how in World War II two brothers, not unlike Matthius and myself, financed the war, one on the side of the Allies, one on the side of the Germans. The more blood, any blood, that was spilt, the more money they made. The idea sickened me and Matthius.**

**My grandfather said that one must fight for one’s family, and if an enemy attacks the country, or the house, then fight and fight to win! But otherwise, avoid the wars of others.**

**Now our country is going to drag unwilling men into war far away, to fight on foreign soil, to die there for a cause that I believe is a lie because it sounds like a lie. Silvia says to go to Canada, and leave her and Bella here, so we are packing up and leaving.**

**We are very sad, we may never see our cherished grandmothers again. Our mothers are sad, too, but they do not want us involved in this conflict, either.**

**Some say it is against communism, others that it is simply about money and trade. It is hard to find the truth. Our wives have been strong and proud, our growing girls are so precious! They are almost as close as Matthius and I! I cannot imagine leaving them to go off and kill other men with children and wives at home praying for them.**

**Matthius is shaken at the images that are shown in the newspapers and on television.**

**End of 1965**

**We came to Quebec, since we can both speak French well, and first got work as labourers and lower-paid carpenters and the like on the great ‘Expo’ as it came to be called, and then worked on the Saint Joseph’s Oratory for a while. It was mostly complete by the time we arrived there but it was a huge undertaking and there is still the finishing touches, plaster work, and work with Canadian granite, which is not marble, but it is nice to work with this stone! It is good to be working on something with such value. San Guiseppe is the Patron Saint of Canada.**

**We feel pride in that, and often wish future events had not happened. We learned of all the miracles there, and we could have done with a few miracles of our own.**

**Our grandmother’s both died, in seeming good health, but they, like our grandfathers, seemed not anxious to live without each other…Silvia died and Bella within two months of her. {Notation in margin in different ink: these ladies died in late 1967 and early 68 respectively – M}**

**Since the older generation had passed away, our fathers had decided to move to New York City, as it would be a better market for their furniture, they could go directly to wealthy people and make custom furniture and charge better prices. Our family houses there were locked up, and they paid a small retainer to neighbours to keep a watch on them.**

**My dear wife fell ill. She developed pneumonia and within three days she was dead. I was bereft and without Matthius’ support and love I do not think I could have come through. I did not realise how badly it was affecting my daughter, now a beautiful young woman. I blame myself, but it was a time of great turbulence in North America generally. Quebec had it’s own share of trouble and violence, mostly about the concerns of their sovereignty from the rest of Canada.**

**Matty and his wife tried to help me, but I was depressed and withdrawn. It was then that I found that my young daughter was pregnant. She told me with some defiance, and I lost my temper with her. It ended with her walking out. I should have handled it differently. Matty would have been gentler and – but that is what happened.**

**We all did try to find her, but she had vanished. {“I did not know that she had left Canada for the United States, ending up in Michigan, all alone and desperate. I blame myself for that.” – This was scribbled in the margin – M}**

**I was a terrible burden on my family in those days, I fear. They did not say it, but I know. We moved into a very small place, as our family was smaller and we were struggling to survive. I got word that my daughter was in Michigan and then in New York, but we had no idea where to start looking for her, we had trained her well in the art of disappearing if she wished, and we may still eligible for the draft , or prosecuted for avoiding it, if we returned.**

**Matthius’ daughter meanwhile fell in love with a man of Irish descent and they married. I shall call him Micky (this secrecy, and thinking of false names and making use of them faithfully can be tedious). He did not make very much money, and we remained poor.**

**Much of that was my fault, I was in a depression that left me useless. I tried to work, but all I could manage were low-paying jobs, and my listlessness lead to me being fired several times. I also drank too much and would fall into terrible tempers. I think Matthius was scared for his family some of those times. Eventually he sent them back to the USA, saying that we would be joining them soon – rumour had it that the draft would be abolished, the people in both the USA and Canada were becoming very hostile towards sending their men off to war so far away and with so few happy results, if wars ever give such things!**

**Matthius came to me with a plan to get enough money for a fresh start. He was so clever and skilled and he had done some work with the Family, the Cosa Nostra - what is mostly called the Mafia - in Montreal. They now had come to him and asked for a plan of how to break into the museum. It was his favourite place to go, he loved the artwork and had used any money he had to paint…he would buy little postcards and prints of great painting and then research them, go and gaze at them as though his brain was a camera, which perhaps it was, and then come home and paint them.**

**Then he would go and look, come back and paint again. He had read this book, and it inspired him that he could do the same as his grandfather had done!**

**He got work at the museum, and spent much of his free time either at the museum, sketching and ‘just looking’ he used to say, or at home painting. He created good copies of five different masterpieces. I could not tell how good a copy each was, but they were certainly beautiful.**

**I was not a great deal of help to him.**

**Then he said he needed my assistance. There was something he couldn’t do alone and he trusted no-one else. I was encouraged by his boyish enthusiasm, and his plan seemed foolproof. He took the plan to the one son of the Mafia, a man he disliked, but who had promised him good payment. This man wanted to prove himself to his father as the best to replace the old man.**

**There are, within the Mafia, good men, whose morals are better than so-called law-abiding men, and then there are those who are worse than snakes. We seldom got involved, despite the fact that many non-Italian Americans thought all of us were linked to the Mafia, and our families have always lived as little as possible in the confines of the law…but we do that to remain free and secure and not to hurt or control others.**

**On the 4th of September, three of the Mafia’s men carried out my friend’s plan. He told them it was proven because on the 3rd of September we had followed the same plan. We had also followed the same plan three weeks earlier. Matty said he must see the whole of the paintings, so we swopped his forgeries with the real paintings, then he painted the originals again, with all the detail he could now see, since they were out of the frame.**

**He was meticulous, and I was surprised. I had always felt he lacked the focus to be a perfectionist, that he was too ‘creative and romantic’ perhaps! He was so quick at these paintings because he had practised them over and over! He said he could paint them with a blindfold over his eyes!**

**Now we could also copy all the identifying marks, we moved them over if we could not obtain the right paper at the time for a label, or a notation.**

**On the 3rd we went and swopped out his original, poorer forgeries with these new, to Matty, better ones. (Some of them were large, and we had secretly spent many nights in a local pizzeria that boasted a large brick oven! We sat there drinking good coffee while his paintings gently ‘aged’ in the cooling oven!)**

**The Museum’s officials were on holiday, the struggling museum had little good security. All this Matty had researched. However, when we entered the museum, we alerted no-one and merely replaced seven of the masterpieces with my friend Matty’s excellent forgeries. On the day of the 4th it was business as usual, for we had left no clues and no-one noticed the swops.**

**Matty was not completely happy about the art theft, but knew that the Italian buyers and hierarchy of the Mafia would appreciate the art and that the museum would be compensated. It was struggling because many of the Protestant patrons had left Montreal due to the aggressive pro-French politics which lead to riots in the streets and many injuries, and the museum needed cold hard cash to survive. {(In the end, after a long time, the museum did in fact receive nearly 2 million dollars from the insurance company.)- This was scribbled in the margin – M}**

**Then things started to go wrong. Matthius believed that the theft would draw all attention from the art still on the walls of the museum, distracting from our substitutions. It was a brilliant plan.**

**But either the thieves became ambitious on their own behalf, did not follow orders well, or merely couldn’t read or distinguish one painting from another! They did take some of the ones they should have, others that they had not been supposed to take - and amongst those they took three of Matty’s forgeries. The Mafia man in charge had all the paintings authenticated by an expert from the museum staff, I was told, and apparently discovered one of the forgeries. He knew Matty was a painter and the next thing we knew, we had a price on our heads.**

**This man was a hothead: these paintings could have been forged at any time, the authenticator might have been mistaken. But because Matty had admitted to trying out the plan, we were the obvious suspects, and he needed to show off his power to others in the organisation.**

**In addition, we were approached in a clandestine fashion by an acquaintance wearing a scarf and hat who told us most vehemently that this man was linked to a far larger and much more sinister organisation that had existed in Canada since the American civil war or before, and these were truly ruthless, cruel men! We could not risk this being true, we had no choice but to flee!**

**Matty said it was too dangerous to move with the original paintings, and placed them in a hidden space which we had noted in a vault beneath St. Joseph’s Oratory. We travelled west as quickly as possible, escaped across the border and east into New York.**

**We stayed at our family homes, now unoccupied, and I attempted to find my daughter, with no luck whatsoever. We visited our grandparents’ graves and cleaned them and set flowers about them. Matty’s daughter knew all about the art heist, but Micky only suspected. They were happy, and her husband was a good, intelligent man with a wonderful laugh. He delighted us with his silly songs and dances.**

**I came out of my depression because the family needed me. I used what my grandfather had taught me and made new identification papers for everyone in the family. Micky raised his black eyebrows and I expected an outcry, but he said, “You Italian folks have your problems, but you don’t know how much our families suffered at the hands of the English! There is nothin’ wrong with protecting your family! Thank you!” Which made us love him all the more.**

**We worked hard and made furniture. We had been taught all the skills of great craftsmen. We concentrated on large bedroom furniture: matching beds, head-boards, wardrobes and such. Each had a hidden compartment and a great deal of beautiful carving.**

**Sharon and her daughter looked after all the other needs of the family. Mia fell pregnant twice but each time lost the baby, to our distress. She became melancholy, she missed Maria, her sister! But though we sent word to all the Catholic and Italian congregations and clubs, we heard nothing.**

**We sent messages secretly to our parents through others, since we wanted no link between us and them, for their own safety. Their business was thriving, and they were quite happy in the City.**

**1973 {the date is an added marginal notation – M} Several women were killed in our area. Later, we found it was a crazy man doing the killing, but at the time we thought it was something to do with the Mafia and their backers hunting us, trying to flush us out. Mia became angry with her father, saying it was all his fault that this had come upon us.Micky and I tried to calm her. It was a horrible time, and the whole area, all of North Eastern New York and Adirondack Park was being searched for the killer. They called it a ‘man-hunt’ .**

**It put us in jeopardy because we were living there without a history, so to speak. We couldn’t be interrogated by the FBI.**

**Matty and I decided that we must leave the region for a while. We needed to decide where to go and the south of France seemed our best option. He could move the artwork there and through Switzerland. The riskiest part was getting it out of Quebec.**

**Sharon, Mia and Micky left and became established in a small town in the right area. They asked several local businesses if they could have furniture sent there.**

**Matty and I went to Quebec. We were sad to go, as my father had suffered a heart attack and wasn’t very well, and our mothers missed us and wanted us to go to New York City, but we couldn’t risk involving them.**

**We travelled to the St Joseph’s Oratory, parked close with the furniture van we had purchased and painted, and Matty and I got the pieces out and we hid each in a separate piece of furniture. Then we exported the pieces to the various different addresses. This way if one or two were lost, the others might still get through. I organised all the paperwork.**

**We didn’t wait long before we left. We flew to England and made our way by road and rail to join our family. By the time we arrived, they had received anonymous word that my father had died of another heart attack. It was very sad not to be able to go back for the funeral and to comfort my mother. We went to the Cathedral and prayed and lit candles for him.**

**We rented a house big enough for all of us and started an import-export business. The furniture, beautifully crafted and imported from French Canada, sold easily. Of course, it was a bit lighter by the time we sold it!**

**Then Matty’s mother died of influenza. We comforted each other. None of this was supposed to have happened. If the Vietnam War hadn’t happened, if those stupid thieves had stolen exactly what they were supposed to steal, all would be wonderful for us!**

**Over the next few years, Matty sold off the artwork he’d liberated from the museum, and we kept a very low profile, living simple lives. We certainly did not want to alert anyone, Mafia or other!**

**But I felt so good! I was happy and contented. I was learning more about forging – documents, etchings, photographs, and Matty just carried on painting in private, and cooking, but his eye for colour was often useful to me. Sharon looked after all of us, and Mia worked in a retail store and soon became a branch manager, and her husband worked for us doing all sorts of things, including making furniture with us.**

**We did not get further word about our parents. It might be dangerous to write to them, so we did not. We knew that they were probably all deceased as time went by.**

**Mia was young and idealistic and became very concerned about the atomic bombs and how they could destroy the world and all the beauty of nature. She was pleased we had moved from the USA because of their involvement, but never got over losing my daughter. I think she thought of her more than I did, after a time.**

**To me, it was as though she’d died when she left us. I knew the chance of us ever finding each other again was nearly nil. We’d changed our names, moved to a new continent…I liked France, always had, but Mia was restless. Micky liked what we were doing and could put his hand to anything.**

**1984 Today, Micky and Sharon were crossing the street after doing some shopping and both were killed by a car that was speeding and out of control. So suddenly. It comes as a terrible shock to all of us. He truly was our son! She was the centre of our lives. We grieve terribly.**

**Mia found she was pregnant, but we all thought it meant nothing. After all, she’s lost every child within two or three months. But this little boy was stubborn. He wanted to live. More than the rest of us, I believe, after the loss! So many dear people gone from our lives…to us, family-oriented people, it was terrible.**

**Matty and I discussed the problems and took Mia aside and showed her the book. We didn’t expect it to have the impact it did. Perhaps it was because she was a pregnant woman, with all that implies. Perhaps it was because she had lived with so much change and loss.**

**To her, the eternal prophecy about her son and Maria’s son was so magical, such a promise of something good and lasting. After all, Silvia had foreseen my friendship with Matty, who had those bright blue eyes and that line of freckles. She started to worry not only about Maria, but about her son.**

**Mia was convinced that Maria had given birth to a boy and he was over there and all alone without his ‘friend-of-the-heart’. She had nightmares about it.**

**Two things happened together that created the scenario that followed. She gave birth to the sweetest baby boy you could imagine. Matty and I hoped that now she would settle down and become a devoted mother. But if anything she became more disquieted. Her son, Matty’s grandson, had the same line of freckles across his shoulder blade even as a tiny baby and his eyes truly were as blue as the Mediterranean in summer. He laughed and smiled and hardly ever cried unless someone shouted.**

**“He’ll be an artist, like me!” Matty said, then was dismayed, since I didn’t have my grandson to brag about.**

**But soon neither did he.**

**The French sank Greenpeace’s _Rainbow Warrior_. It was a disgusting act. They thought they needed their nuclear weapons: again, what war does to people and nations! It doesn’t seem as though something such as that would change a person who was not intimately involved with the Greenpeace movement, but perhaps it was the proverbial last straw, that her adopted country, too, was a murderer.**

**Mia became withdrawn and listless. I tried to help, thinking she was suffering the same terrible disease that had stolen years from me. But it was something worse.**

**She took to walking with the pram through the parks and we wouldn’t see her for hours a day. She lost weight and eventually Matty took her to a doctor, who told us she wouldn’t live to see her son’s first birthday.**

**Matty refused to believe it. He got two other doctors’ opinions and made plans to visit Lourdes.**

**Mia seemed suddenly strangely calm. She came home one day without the baby, and told us she had ‘given’ him to a lovely family from the US, who would adopt him and take him ‘home’. She wouldn’t tell us any more, because she knew we would go and get him back. She said the mother was sweet and caring and had lost a baby recently and was smitten with our baby. Mia said she didn’t know the father much, but that he was a policeman, so the boy would be protected. This was a slap in the face for Matty, since she obviously still believed that all our troubles came from him forging the paintings.**

**We could not have lived had he not, we could not have come here, we could not have started a business! “What are you two old men going to do with a baby, Papa, Papa Alec?” she asked, softly, as we raved at her. “He needs a chance to find his soul-mate, at least be in the same country.”**

**“My grandson, if he exists at all, might be living in the next village!” I argued, “And we are far from old!” but she was as stubborn as her father.**

**We never saw the baby – I call him Matthew – again. We searched the village and surrounding areas, looking for, asking about any babies, especially those with bright blue eyes. We found a few young babies, but none of them was ours.**

**Mia was so ill, and she soon needed care all day and night. It exhausted us both. Eventually, she died peacefully, saying that she knew that her baby and his soul-mate were together. We buried her there, sweet Mia, and worked on for a few years, but neither of us felt our hearts were in it. It is amazing how grief can make one feel old! For the first time everything seemed like toil. It was worse than the depression I had suffered. It seemed that we had nothing left to live for, to plan for. Thankfully, we had the money so we did not need to work.**

**We took to spending time at the local tourist resorts, hoping that Mia had been right, and that little Matthew’s family would take another journey to this beautiful area, and that we might see a little boy with bright blue eyes and a line of freckles. Just to know he lived and was happy would be better than nothing!**

**One afternoon, watching some children playing, we were approached by a young blonde woman. Matty turned and smiled and her worried look cleared. I sighed. It was always the same, even as a grandfather!**

**“Are you two searching for someone?” she asked in very bad French. Matty smiled again and said, “We speak English, some. We are a little out of ease – out of practice. And yes, we lost a little boy a while back. We just have the small hope of seeing him here.”**

**“He was kidnapped?” she queried in American English.**

**“No, but a family member gave him for adoption when of unsound mind,” Matty said, sadly. “We probably have no legal rights, but it does not stop us wanting to see him. We know nothing about his parents now, but they vacationed here a while back and we hope.”**

**“Him and his brother, and mother, we are trying to find three people who may be in America, in the United States!” Matty looked at me in surprise. “And,” I went on, “his new father was supposed to be a policeman in America.”**

**“My uncle is a cop,” she smiled. “It is a large community, but you never know. Miracles happen. My name is Evelyn. Why don’t I take down everything you remember and when I get back to the States I shall just put the word out, ask my uncle to ask around. Look, Sirs, it is a small chance, but a small chance is better than none!”**

**We did that, and took the pretty girl to dinner a few times while she was there, as a thanks. Somehow, it made both of us feel better that we were not completely abandoning Matthew and Maria and her child, if she had one. We agreed to pay all Evelyn’s expenses and for her time and expertise if she would take some time and look for our family. In a short time, Evelyn left and went home. We traded letters. Nothing turned up for many years.**

**Then she, with her uncle’s help found a parcel containing a locket and a letter at the dead letters office in Minnesota. It was written to …we’ll continue to call them Bella and Silvia. She forwarded it to us. It was from my Maria!**

**The letter said,**

_**.....“Dearest Great-grand-mama’s,** _

_**I hope you are still living at our beautiful homes, or close enough that this is delivered to you. I hesitate to write to you, I have been so bad, so wrong, and God has punished me. I need to come back to you if you will have me.** _

_**I left Papa and Papa Matty and Mia, and I have no-one else now. I gave birth to a little baby boy, but I was so very ill that I could not care for him. His father took him from me and then left me in Detroit, penniless.** _

_**I have been living with a Catholic family on the outskirts of the city, trying to find where my …where my baby’s father took him! I miss him so much! But now they are asking if I have somewhere else to go. There are fourteen in the family and they are poor.** _

_**I wrote to Papa, but I have received no word. He is probably still furious as I wasn’t married when I became pregnant, and disrespected him.** _

_**If you can forgive me, if you can take me in, please write care of this address? Take care of the locket for me, give it to Mia, would you, with my love to all the family?** _

_**Your loving, Maria.”** _

**The locket held pictures of Maria and Mia as children. It had been a gift from Silvia, and Matteo had painted the little portraits beautifully. We cried! Our two dear girls! We clung together and sobbed. She had written to me, but we had moved! The parcel had been sent to our family home, but no-one had been living there, and somehow no-one had picked it up to keep it for us, and because it was a parcel containing something of sentimental value, Evelyn explained in her accompanying letter, it would have to be signed for. Since no-one could do that, it had gone back to the dead letter office, and when her uncle contacted them they were delighted to hand it over to it’s rightful owners.**

**Had it just been a letter, it would have been destroyed, but because of the value to the family, they had kept it!**

**Evelyn, turning out to be a real friend and a detective like the literary character Holmes, pointed out that there was an incomplete return address, it was the name of a house, not a street and number but that it was in Detroit. She tracked down all the births recorded in Detroit.**

**With the help of her uncle, she narrowed it down to five baby boys who were not accounted for. Babies that had no mother’s or father’s name registered.**

**She found that three of them had died. One had been adopted and from incomplete records it seemed as though the mother had been involved. Which left one.**

**This baby boy had been abandoned in Detroit at The Brush Park Home for Children. He was born about the correct time. She thought that the man running the home, though he was reticent in the extreme, might have ways of contacting him, did we want to continue?**

**Evelyn went on to say that there was no sign of a little baby adopted from France by the family of a policeman in the US near the time we had given her. She suggested that they might have merely said that the baby was theirs, and this left an enormous group of babies!**

**We didn’t know what birth date they would have used! It seemed hopeless. We had no idea which state they came from. No idea what the mother or father looked like, or even their ages! He might have been a policeman, or in the reserves, or even none of these, the woman might just have told Mia this to convince her to hand over her child!**

**We walked and sat by the pond and thought and argued and talked. The chance that this was Maria’s son was so slim. Yes, Maria had written from Detroit, and yes, she said the baby’s father had taken him from her in Detroit. We didn’t know that was true, she might have been too sick to know what was happening! But even if it was, it wasn’t likely that the father, having gone to the trouble of removing the baby from a sickly mother, would have abandoned him.**

**He would most likely had taken him to his own mother to raise and we knew not where that was. Or if he had taken him and then abandoned him – perhaps his family had not wanted his motherless child – he might have abandoned him anywhere in the USA or Canada!**

**But after two days of debating, we decided that if any other scenario were true, we would have no way of tracing either of our lost sons. We are aging, and can do very little on our own. There may still be people out there, especially on the North American continent, who wouldn’t mind ‘tying up loose ends’, and getting a ’notch in the belt’ I think they call it. Going back could put those things in motion and endanger our grandsons and Maria, too, if we ever found her.**

**We have no-one else. So we are packing up this strange family history book and sending it to Evelyn to take to a lawyer who will make sure this lad, whatever his name might be, will get it after we are dead. We are probably being over-cautious, but rather that. This book has no real names, no-one can trace him back to us.**

**But Matty says that my line – Sandro, Leonora, me, and Maria as we have called them – and now my possible grandson – we have always been the ones with the treasure map. We’ve always been the ones with the diary, the story, keeping up the history while his line has been painting and dancing alongside.**

**So we give what may be my grandson this book, though he will be a man full-grown and may think this is all nonsense. Even if he believes the strange tales of our entwined families, he may come to the probably correct conclusion that it has nothing to do with him, that he was just a baby born in Detroit and abandoned at about the time my grandson was born. It’s a big city, with many cities close enough for my baby to have been taken there, if he indeed survived. Babies are such fragile beings, especially taken from his mother!**

**We have no more to add to the story. If you do indeed get this, please do not dismiss it. Whether or not you are our blood, this is the story of a family who did the best they could, lived exciting lives through exciting times, and loved each other, for the most part.**

**We hope you are ours and wish you love and happiness. Perhaps, in future years, if ‘Silvia’ was correct, your son, or your grandson, will find a friend with bright blue eyes. So many less likely things have happened.**

**God bless you. {Journal ends – M}**

 

Neal lay there, having re-read much of the tale, the notebook closed on his chest, thinking about this strange family, blessed and cursed, innovative and loving and struggling to survive with their personal if unusual morals intact in an immoral world.

He got up, slightly stiff from staying in the same position for so long. He went to the phone.

“Hallo, Moz. It’s me. I’ve finished it.”

“Good.”

“It’s a bit late. Shall I come over tomorrow? Or would you like to come here?”

“I’ll come over there tomorrow. You have good wine.”

“Yeah. Might need it.”

 

The lights were taking over from the sunset when Moz knocked on the door and Neal let him in. He had the makings of omelettes, and had selected some wines for Moz to choose from. Choosing one would just make Moz want something different!

They opened the wine and went and sat outside. Neal gave Moz the book and said, “So?”

“It’s quite the story,” Mozzie nodded, his glasses flashing gold.

“Lovely story. Love the bit about the Louvre.”

“You would!” Mozzie grinned.

“And as you said, it’s crazier than anything you could have imagined about your progenitors.”

“Told you.”

"You think it’s true, that you’re the youngest scion of this wild family of Italians and Irish?”

“I’d like to believe it.”

“Yes. At least it’s something, isn’t it? It answers some questions. Why your family never came back for you. But we don’t know what happened to your mother.”

“But she wanted to find me. They – what would be my grandfathers, or one grandfather and his friend – wanted to find me.”

“Have you spoken to the lawyers about this Evelyn? Perhaps there’s something more she could tell you.”

“I can try. But I was told that there was nothing else, all contact had been broken off. There must be quite a few Evelyns in the USA, even narrowing it down to just include daughters of policemen!”

“This is enough for you, Moz? You have no family name, so nothing to find…but you do say that the family names are blotted out in the original, of Matteo and Sandro – we could find out what their names were, use chemicals, light, it should be possible.”

“Perhaps we should respect their wishes, mon frére.”

“Perhaps. I’m pleased for you, Mozzie. I know it doesn’t prove anything, but it’s very possible that they are your family.”

“Yes.”

“And one day, if we have time and the inclination, we could go and find a possibly ugly monument in Milan or thereabouts to two young men killed in the earthquake and tsunami around Messina, break in and see if the ‘little Italian girl’ is there!”

“Wouldn’t prove that they are related to me, though.”

“Come on, you wouldn’t enjoy having arguably the most famous painting in the world – the _**original,**_ mind you – hanging on your wall?”

Mozzie smiled gently, sipping the wine.

“It’s perhaps a little surprising that none of the other Mona Lisa’s have surfaced, if the story’s true, don’t you think?” Neal asked.

“No, not if they each think they have the original. As soon as they display it, they’ll be had up for receiving stolen goods, there’ll be an outcry, they would lose it. No, they’ll keep it nicely hidden and gloat in secret.”

“Funny though, if Matteo’s eight little Italian girls could be displayed on the same wall of the Louvre…spot the original, win a mug and a T-shirt!

....“Yes, you’re right. You know, Peter showed me an article written by a cop – high-up cop, too - saying that there were no commissioned art thefts that people talk about as no-one wanted to have a piece they couldn’t display and brag about! Have you ever heard the like! How these people ever catch even stupid criminals is beyond me!”

“Perhaps the minds of the criminals are, at the time of the arrest, befuddled by love!” Mozzie grinned slyly. Neal glared at him, and Mozzie went on, “To prove your point, when the Mona Lisa was stolen, wasn’t Pablo Picasso suspected? And didn’t he have some small statuettes that had been stolen from the Louvre in his sock drawer of all places?”

“That’s the story! Yes, not exactly on display! I wonder if he gave them back? I must tell Peter that, someday…he’ll want to go and arrest Pablo for more than his later work!”

After a pause, Neal went on, “What do you think about this dangerous secret society which scared Matty and Alec into flight?”

He looked over and, seeing Mozzie’s expression, added, “Come on, I see you as…what? …the **_‘Enciclopedia di Intrighi’,_** as Matteo would say, yes? Do not tell me you do not know who this group might be?”

Mozzie cleaned his glasses. “If it is the group I think it is, they were very right to be afraid.”

“Come on, Moz? Who were these thugs?”

“Oh, no, Neal, these were no thugs. Very sophisticated, persistent, out-of-the box thinkers with big plans, in their time. If they bothered a group that had been in existence since the Civil War, or before…why do you think any war could be called ‘civil’? …and had bases in Canada, especially Montreal, it was almost certainly the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

Neal frowned and spoke slowly, “I thought that was a myth to frighten children.”

“No, though frightening enough.”

“Surely, Moz – I know you love conspiracies - ”

“Neal, there are letters in the Library of Congress about this particular little conspiracy! There is a mass of evidence that they not only worked with Booth and others and funded the assassination of President Lincoln, but gathered a huge treasury to re-open the Civil War.”

“But that was decades ago… more than a hundred years before Matty and Alec fled from them!”

“Rumour has it that they still have the same or a similar agenda.”

“That can’t still exist!”

“You hadn’t heard much about them, yet their military arm became the KKK, which I am sure you know about!”

“So they were very bad, wanting Lincoln killed, creating the Klu Klux Klan?”

“You think Lincoln was a good guy?”

“Yes! He abolished slavery, he - ”

“Don’t get excited, you may be right. I am just saying that you have no personal knowledge, and he was a politician and therefore suspect.

...“Just be aware that history is written by the victorious and is often not true, or only partially so.”

Neal nodded. “You’re right. I wish you weren’t, I wish we didn’t have to always add footnotes, but I know you’re right. But you yourself said they were very dangerous!”

“From what I gleaned when looking into them, they were - or are - ruthless and determined. I suppose any group trying desperately to save its way of life can be said to be. The North were far from saints, either, and what happened afterwards – oh, well, that’s the way it was.”

“But slaves went to Canada to escape…if this group was so strong…?”

“Yes, it is reckoned that they were half a million strong, not counting Quantrill’s Raiders and other such quasi-military, quasi-outlaw groups that acted as soldiers but also ‘collected’ funds. But they were secretly in Canada, a government in exile, if you like, passing messages and organising. Canadians weren’t involved, as far as I can tell. But if someone crossed them, which it seems the Mafia son told them that Matty had done, they would have wiped them out without regret! They may have been using the art to move funds…” Mozzie pondered.

Mozzie shivered a little as a breeze picked up. Neal noticed and stood, suggesting they go in and he would cook the omelettes. Mozzie sat almost without speaking as Neal concocted the fluffy dishes and then they sat and enjoyed them. Neal smiled. It was nice to have friends with whom one was so comfortable that ‘filling the silence’ wasn’t a prerequisite.

“So, are you going to write in this famous book?” Neal asked, as they eventually settled back with coffee and biscotti (he’d felt it was appropriate.) “You have quite a story to add, don’t you?”

Mozzie glanced up. “More than you know!”

“Well, you’re pretty secretive, so you’d fit right in with Silvia and Colleen and Mia and the rest!”

Mozzie smiled. “And our adventures are just as exciting…the recovered sub treasure, kidnappings, Hope diamond…!”

“And if you do inherit characteristics, which no-one seems sure about - ”

“There are the interesting changes in character and food preferences of recipients of organs, especially hearts, I believe,” Mozzie pointed out, “which sort of argues for some sort of muscle memory, even if not genetic…and those studies of identical and fraternal twins.”

Neal looked at him. “That’s all very true. And Sandro’s folks were in printing, and then he liked maths and science and Alec liked them and electronics and you’re good with computers and forging and chemistry. It’s all pretty right for you.”

“And the Italians like their wine,” Mozzie said, as though it clinched the deal.

Neal laughed. “Exactly!” He wanted Mozzie to believe in this book, no matter what. He wanted Mozzie to become sure that his family had been looking for him, unable to come to him, perhaps. And they were a lovely, loving family of non-violent criminals.

“They hated the government corruption, too,” Mozzie mused. “It’s almost too perfect!”

“Oh, so you’d rather there was a lawyer or a politician in there somewhere?” Neal teased.

“Um, no. But you’re not really thinking, either, Neal.”

“What?”

“Well, I have to ask where you’re head’s been in all this? Were you embedded in the enemy camp at the FBI for so long that your brain became as addled as their ideology?”

Neal frowned, not really sure what Moz wanted from him. “Well, we could go look for the tomb, that would prove something. We could, especially if I ask Peter to use his databases and so on, look for Maria…hmm, that’s not easy is it? Some young girl who gave birth a long time ago somewhere in Detroit…but Evelyn the policeman’s daughter is probably a good bet.

...“I’m not going to ask you to give the FBI a DNA sample to see if she’s in the system, though that might work…”

“Heaven forefend, Neal!”

“The other thing that we could do is just put ads in…I know you won’t want to go on something like ancestry.com - ”

“No, seriously, you have lost your _**mind,**_ Neal – the Id-theft and government-data-gathering website of them all?"

“But some of the social media could be used, - anonymously of course!” Neal hurriedly added. “And even newspapers and things.

.....‘Would a woman of Italian and Irish descent, born in New York State, only child though with a close friend who was like a sister who gave birth on… your abandonment day or whatever you like to call it… or within two weeks before, in Detroit Michigan contact – a burner cell number – as she may learn something to her advantage’ ?”

“We’re giving rewards for being my mother now?”

“She’ll need one when she meets you! You’re not a priest or a doctor or a lawyer, and you’re not married with five grandchildren for the poor woman, and - ”

Mozzie huffed, then grinned. “I might be something of a surprise.”

“Nice surprise, Moz, joking aside. She was desperate to find you.”

“We could perhaps try.”

“If we did find her, then we could run a private DNA match and prove you’re him,” Neal pointed at the book.

“I really wouldn’t like my DNA on any database anywhere. We’d have to buy our own instruments.”

“Whatever you’d like, Moz.”

“But Neal, I don’t need to do all that. I’d like to find my mother, of course, if she’s still alive…” he hesitated. “You know, that feels quite weird to me. I’ve been the ‘abandoned baby with no-one’ for so long…”

“You haven’t got no-one!” Neal snapped. “Chopped liver over here, remember? To say nothing of cute Sally. And dear June and El. And Peter really likes and respects you.”

“Okay, okay, but the motherless abandoned baby!” Moz grinned. He seemed to be happy, Neal thought. It wasn’t a very common look on Mozzie!

“You said we didn’t need to do DNA and all. You’re taking this on faith?”

“Dumb as a stump,” Mozzie observed to his wine-glass. “Did they do EST on you in the Bureau?”

“I don’t quite - ”

“Electro-shock therapy!”

“Yes, but I still don’t - ”

“That’s my point exactly.”

“So, Great Mind of your Generation, explain.”

Mozzie put down his glass and got up. He quirked a finger at Neal and walked through to the bathroom. “Look,” he said, pointing at the mirror.

“Yes?” Neal said, absently fixing an out-of-place curl.

“Okay, still not firing on all cylinders,” Mozzie huffed again. “Take off your shirt.”

“I’m not taking off my clothes, with you, in a bathroom, Mozzie! Don’t be weird!

"It’s not that I - ”

“Take off your damned fancy shirt, Neal, before I damage it!”

Neal, keeping a wary eye on Mozzie, unbuttoned his shirt and shucked it off his shoulders. Mozzie pushed him to one side and picked up the hand-mirror and held it behind his back. Neal looked at him in the mirror in surprise.

“See?”

“What, no, I don’t…oh.”

“What is it everyone notices about you, other than that their pockets are lighter when you leave then when you arrive?” Moz asked. “Your blue eyes. And there’s the stupid line of freckles. The line of freckles in a long, long line of lines of freckles.”

“How did you…?”

“How many times have I patched up your damaged hide after some ill-fated scheme that involved jumping out of windows or being thrown out of cars or hostile interaction with someone else’s knife or gun or fists? I notice things, Neal. It’s one of our most important skills. I’m surprised some girl or another hasn’t ooohed and aahed about them.”

“Too busy oohing about other things,” Neal deflected absently, studying his shoulder in the double reflection. Then he turned, shrugged his shirt back on and started doing up the buttons. “But then Moz, I’m **_Matthew!_** I’m Matteo’s …great-grandson. No…great-great-grandson! My great-great-grandfather stole the Mona Lisa!”

They both added automatically, “Allegedly!”

“Yes, and there’s more. This is more for you than me, mon frére!”

“More important than being the heir of the man who walked out of the Louvre with da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and took her for a **_bus-ride?!_** ” Neal exclaimed, his bright blue eyes alight. “What could there be?”

“That was, according to the book, his forgery, but I agree, a great story! I’m surprised you didn’t see you before you saw me!” Mozzie waved his hands. “The nice gentle woman with the cop husband? And this means that, Neal, whoever you are…!”

 

Neal drew in a huge breath, gazing off into space.

 

Then he hissed, “ ** _James fucking Bennett isn’t my father!”_ **

 

“Exactly. We’re not sure your real name or anything, but you don’t have that taint.”

Despite years of programming not to do such things, Neal grabbed Mozzie’s wrists and waltzed him round the rather small living space. For once, Mozzie made no protestation. His friend had been so shocked by the fact that his father was a hard, selfish killer.

Neal let Mozzie go and sank down in a chair. “I can hardly believe it! How did you guess so soon?”

“Remember, my line, Sandro and Alec and all, we’re the record keepers, the treasure-map keepers. There were no defining marks for our line. We had to look out for you, the Matteo-line, with the eyes and the freckles.”

“B-but, wait, Moz! Do you know what the chances are for us to find each other when we started in different states, both in the wrong families – you know what I mean! Sandro and Matteo were brought up together, as were Alec and Matty…but us?”

“Apparently the chances are pretty good, mon frére!” Then Mozzie laughed. “Like brothers. And the prophesy foretold it.”

Neal looked at him doubtfully. “I see why you were muttering about reincarnation, but this isn’t. I mean, Matteo and Sandro were still alive when Matthius and Alec were born, after all, and they were still alive when we were born…”

“I know, it can’t be reincarnation unless we are Sandro and Matteo, and that still doesn’t explain the freckles. The bright blue eyes, perhaps, but that particular attribute – and you’re a painter and an expert forger and your eye for colour and detail is exceptional. And you hate violence as much as they did.”

 

After that they both just sat and finished the two bottles of wine that were open and talked little. It was only after a fortnight that Neal talked Mozzie into letting him ask Peter to look for Maria.

“It’s a long shot. She may be dead, she may not want to be found. She may be living in Lithuania or New Zealand, but we’ve got to give it a try, Moz.”

Neal phoned and asked Peter if he could see him for an hour at his house. Peter, as he was programmed to do, immediately started thinking what crimes his friend had committed, and when Neal came in looking rather sombre and asked, first thing, if he could have full immunity, Peter’s adrenaline kicked in.

“Neal, what have you done?”

“Actually, you’d be surprised, I haven’t done anything criminal for a while. Well, nothing worth wasting a good immunity for.” He thought a moment and frowned, “Unless you count that stupid painting that one of June’s friends liked. I sold it to her, but at a very low price. But nothing you’d call criminal.”

“Now I know you’re lying! And if you haven’t, why do you want immunity.”

“For two families I may be sort of related to,” Neal said, with some lack of clarity. He sat at the dining room table and looked uneasy and fidgetted and Peter had to stop himself reaching for his handcuffs. Then he remembered that Neal never looked uneasy if he was actually guilty of something, and relaxed.

“Okay, tell me.”

“Well, the short version is that Mozzie may have been left by a woman – I mean, his mother might have been - ” Neal ran down like a wind-up toy that hasn’t been for a while. This was impossible to explain. He tried again.

“Look, we have perhaps found some information about his family…well, his mother. We don’t actually know her name, either of her names, but she was very young, had a close friend who was a few years younger than she was, she was of Italian and Irish descent and her father had a very close friend, also. And they were mildly criminal.” (He thought that stealing artwork worth hundreds of millions probably wouldn’t count as ‘mildly’ in Peter’s book, but there was no evidence, they were all dead, they were safe, no need to bother Peter!) “And she was born in New York, upstate, and – and – her father had an import-export business, mostly importing stuff from France and Italy. She wasn’t married.”

Peter gazed at him. “And…?”

“And I was wondering if somehow we could put all that into a database somehow and find out if she was still alive, somewhere…?”

Peter continued to gaze. Then he said, “No name at all? No date of birth? What do you want me to look for?”

“Um….”

“Databases don’t work that way, Neal – I need hard facts! Put an ad in the personals!”

“Yeah. I guess.” Neal got up, went to the door, looked back, opening his mouth to explain about not being James Bennett’s son, because of his blue eyes and a cop adoptive father, the south of France and a line of freckles…then he thought better of it, closed his mouth and left.

Peter gazed after him. _Really!_ he thought _Being with Mozzie too much makes Neal as loopy as he is!_

 

Neal and Mozzie talked it all over and decided that it wasn’t worth doing very much. Mozzie wouldn’t share the book with anyone else and the idea of going about the country posting ads in newspapers and thumb-tacking notes onto notice boards seemed ridiculous.

“If this was a country the size of Rhode Island, maybe. She might even be in Hawaii or Alaska!” Mozzie pointed out.

“Puerto Rico or Guam. Or anywhere in the even huger country of Canada!” Neal agreed. “Or in Europe! Let’s just be thankful we, somehow, found each other.”

“And since it seems we are related to these lovely people, let us just thank God that they were so very adept at losing themselves, changing their identity, fading away and reappearing in France. Thank God we have different aliases, and are hard to track. Just in case the Knights were ever involved.”

“If they are still active.” Mozzie shrugged. “Definitely rather be safe. Some of these groups can really hold a grudge!”

There was a long silence. Then Mozzie asked, hesitantly, “I’ve looked at the book carefully. It looks genuine. But then, a forger would make sure it did.”

Neal frowned a little. “What?”

“Did you write the book, Neal?”

“Mozzie, I have heard some crazy theories out of you, but - ”

“No, look, Neal – this gives me closure. You’re bright enough to put together the story and make it historically accurate, and your Italian is excellent.

...“It gives me something to cling to. You might have done it for that reason, and I’d be so grateful for all your work and caring...”

“Mozzie, I did not write the book. Heavens!”

“You did give my line the treasure map to look for you….”

“Making me the treasure? Hmm…I like that!”

“Hmm…you would. And it would give you the joy of not being Bennett’s kid, too.”

“If I wrote it, I’d know it wasn’t true, how does that help?”

“Mon frére, our whole lives are built on believing fantasies! Why should it not being true be a problem?”

Neal gnawed a finger-tip. “That’s scarily accurate, Mozzie! But I assure you, I did not write the book. Please believe me. We don’t lie to each other.”

“Not much,” Mozzie nodded, and they both grinned. “I will write our stories. It will be another great chapter.”

“Problem is, Moz, neither of us are close to providing the little girls to provide the next little boys! At least you have Sally in your life.”

“If it’s meant to be, it’ll be,” Mozzie said, seriously. “Perhaps the world is going to end before our grandsons would be born?”

“Oh, good! Another conspiracy!…this whole history is one, I’m not surprised you accept it so easily.”

“So what shall I call you in my writings?”

“Oh, stick to Matthew. It’s a nice enough name. It’ll confuse the already confused reader further if you change it, and we want to avoid real names. It can be yet another alias for me. And you? Who will you be?”

“I can’t think of another variant of Alec, Alessandro, other than Sandy, and I won’t be Sandy! Perhaps I’ll go regal and be William. After all, it is French and Italian, though southern Italy and northern France, some great men have borne the name and didn’t Malaterra the Bendictine say of the Normans that they were ‘ ** _a race skillful in flattery, given to the study of eloquence so that the very boys are orators, a race altogether unbridled unless held firmly down by the yoke of justice’?_** – as opposed to the law, you will note!”

Neal grinned at the obscure quotation. All this about his beginnings must be making Mozzie think of Mr. Jeffreys.

He shrugged. “Not that it matters, really. Just tell the story and pass it on!”

“No, doesn’t matter.

..."Pass the bottle?"

 

 

 

Fin

 

Comments and criticisms very welcome to this greedy author!!

**Author's Note:**

> I loved the wacky story of how the Mona (or to Italians Monna) Lisa was stolen...and there is no concensus on all the facts! Someone else made up a story that a 'great master thief' was behind the theft, I found after writing it, but he had no facts and his story isn't as good as mine...well, duh, mine's got Neal and Moz in it!
> 
> Bobby Dunbar was kidnapped in 1912, not 1911, but hey, it was a long time ago, and perhaps the newspapers got it wrong! http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/352/the-ghost-of-bobby-dunbar
> 
> Southern Italy was poor! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Kingdom_of_Italy_%281861%E2%80%931946%29
> 
> The Messina earthquake and tidal wave was horrendous. Death stats vary, I believe because the lowest just considered Italy, or just quake victims.  
> http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1483443/Messina-earthquake-and-tsunami-of-1908
> 
>  
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Joseph%27s_Oratory
> 
> Garrow murdered four people:  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Garrow
> 
> The Mona Lisa was stolen (Monna Lisa is the Italian spelling)  
> http://history1900s.about.com/od/famouscrimesscandals/a/monalisa.htm
> 
>  
> 
> The Unsolved art heist in Montreal in 1972  
> http://unsolved-1972-theft-montreal.blogspot.ca/2013/09/the-41st-anniversary-of-theft-and-still.html
> 
> The story of the Rainbow Warrior:  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior
> 
> Knights of the Golden Circle
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle  
> http://knightsofthegoldencircle.webs.com/
> 
> were very real. It is possible they disappeared, possible that some other 'underground' group appropriated their powerful name.
> 
>  
> 
> Most other stuff from Wikipedia. 
> 
> The 'tiny line of freckles along his left shoulder blade.' was mentioned in two, I believe, works by brilliant elrhiarhodan, the delightfully funny one being: 'You'll Be Sorry, Peter'. Not on the Archive.  
> http://elrhiarhodan.dreamwidth.org/358144.html
> 
>  
> 
> I am not Italian, the Latin teacher despaired of me, translations from internet sites!  
> Please forgive me anyone I might have offended! 
> 
> Especially, I now have to consider, the family of Vincenzo Peruggia who, if he pulled off that delightful and clever heist, may not like me hijacking it for my story! 
> 
>  
> 
> And good luck to people who write historically accurate stuff! My thoughts are with you! I have tried, for the most part!
> 
> Comments and criticisms always welcomed One author said 'liked better than Belgian chocolate'...hmmm...get back to you. Healthier, though, in delightfully large quantities!


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